Economic incentives have a powerful effect on the work behavior of women with children in Kenya. In addition to increasing the future productivity of children, government subsidies of low-cost early childhood development programs would increase the number of mothers who work, thus increasing the incomes of poor households and lifting some families out of poverty. They would also increase older girls' enrollment in school, by releasing them from child care responsibilities.

Economic incentives have a powerful effect on the work behavior of women with children in Kenya. In addition to increasing the future productivity of children, government subsidies of low-cost early childhood development programs would increase the number of mothers who work, thus increasing the incomes of poor households and lifting some families out of poverty. They would also increase older girls' enrollment in school, by releasing them from child care responsibilities.About 20,000 early childhood development centers provided day care for and prepared for primary school more than 1 million children aged three to seven (roughly 20 percent of children in that age group) in Kenya in 1995. The number of child care facilities reached 23,690 by the end of 1999.Lokshin, Glinskaya, and Garcia analyze the effect of child care costs on households' behavior in Kenya. For households with children aged three to seven, they model household demand for mothers' participation in paid work, the participation in paid work of other household members, household demand for schooling, and household demand for child care. They find that:- A high cost for child care discourages households from using formal child care facilities and has a negative effect on mothers' participation in market work.- The cost of child care and the level of mothers' wages affect older children's school enrollment, but these factors affect boys' and girls' schooling differently. An increase in mothers' wages increases boys' enrollment but depresses girls' enrollment.- Higher child care costs have no significant effect on boys' schooling but significantly decrease the number of girls in school.This paper - a joint product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group; Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, South Asia Region; and Human Development 1, Africa Technical Families - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to study the role of gender in the context of the household, institutions, and society. The authors may be contacted at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].

Experts illuminate the challenges of achieving universal basic and secondary education, discussing the importance and difficulties not only of expanding access to education and but also of improving the quality of education.

It is widely acknowledged that youth unemployment is one of the most critical challenges facing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This volume brings together an eminent group of international scholars to analyse the extent and complex nature of this joblessness, and offer a set of evidence-based policy choices that could contribute to solving the problem in the short- and long-run. Part I reviews the existing literature on youth unemployment and underemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa from microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives, while Part II goes on to present detailed country studies of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. These studies offer a deep understanding of the situation on the ground and consider country-specific solutions. Throughout the book it is argued that the standard ILO definition of unemployment is too narrow to correctly portray employment situations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several alternative measures of unemployment are presented, which show that joblessness is far more pervasive than commonly assumed in the literature. This volume will be of interest to academics and policy makers involved in African development.

This book analyzes the performance of South Asian educational systems and identifies the causes and correlates of student learning outcomes. Drawing on successful initiatives both in the region and elsewhere in the world, it offers an insightful approach to setting priorities for enhancing the quality of school education in South Asia.

Vermeersch and Kremer examine the effects of subsidized school meals on school participation, educational achievement, and school finance in a developing country setting. They use data from a program that was implemented in 25 randomly chosen preschools in a pool of 50. Children's school participation was 30 percent higher in the treatment group than in the comparison group. The meals program led to higher curriculum test scores, but only in schools where the teacher was relatively experienced prior to the program. The school meals displaced teaching time and led to larger class sizes. Despite improved incentives, teacher absenteeism remained at a high level of 30 percent. Treatment schools raised their fees, and comparison schools close to treatment schools decreased their fees. Some of the price effects are caused by a combination of capacity constraints and pupil transfers that would not happen if the school meals were ordered in all schools. The intention-to-treat estimator of the effect of the randomized program incorporates those price effects, and therefore it should be considered a lower bound on the effect of generalized school meals. This insight on price effects generalizes to other randomized program evaluations. This paper--a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management 2, Africa Technical Families--is part of a larger effort in the region to increase our understanding of the impact of programs aimed at reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

Early childhood, from birth through school entry, was largely invisible worldwide as a policy concern for much of the twentieth century. Children, in the eyes of most countries, were 'appendages' of their parents or simply embedded in the larger family structure. The child did not emerge as a separate social entity until school age (typically six or seven). 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge: Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa' focuses on the 130 million children south of the Sahel in this 0-6 age group. This book, the first of its kind, presents a balanced collection of articles written by African and non-African authors ranging from field practitioners to academicians and from members of government organizations to those of nongovernmental and local organizations. 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge' compiles the latest data and viewpoints on the state of Sub-Saharan Africa's children. Topics covered include the rationale for investing in young children, policy trends in early childhood development (ECD), historical perspectives of ECD in Sub-Saharan Africa including indigenous approaches, new threats from HIV/AIDS, and the importance of fathers in children's lives. The book also addresses policy development and ECD implementation issues; presents the ECD programming experience in several countries, highlighting best practices and challenges; and evaluates the impact of ECD programs in a number of countries.